


on a slow night

by kimaracretak



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/F, Female Friendship, First Kiss, Humor, Mentorship Feelings, who let these dorks run a country
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 09:04:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3890479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Carol has a mentorship complex visible from space, Ginger is an enabler, and CJ won't stop singing along to "I'm Too Sexy"</p>
            </blockquote>





	on a slow night

“ _I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for_ _my shoes . . . not that that's hard . . . too sexy for_ _those other things..._ ”

Carol stifles a groan and checks her watch again. Still at least two hours before she can go home and devote attention to things other than, say, making sure she doesn't interrupt her boss' renditions of “I'm Too Sexy” with _yes, CJ, you definitely are_ _too sexy for that shirt and would you like help taking it off?_ Or something like that. It's hard to work out exactly how to say something that you're trying very hard to not say.

“ _Too sexy for my cat, too sexy for my p– Carol!”_ Carol resists the urge to bang her head against her desk. She'd been half-waiting for this since CJ started playing the damn song this morning. CJ's head appears around the doorframe. “Carol, is he making a sex joke?”

“Yeeeee _ah,_ ” Maybe she could've dragged the word out another few syllables, postponed the inevitable embarrassment.

CJ frowns. Carol studiously avoids thinking about how adorable it makes her look. “It's not a very good one, is it?”

“You could make much better sex jokes, ma'am,” Carol reassures her. Not that she wants to be thinking about CJ-style sex jokes. Well, she _does_ , but not at work with CJ staring at her.

“Damn right I could.” CJ's head vanishes again, and Carol turns back to her computer, bracing herself for another round of singing. But CJ reappears in the doorway before Carol can do more than open her email. “Oh, and Carol, speaking of jokes, someone needs to tell the President that. . .”

Work. Carol tries very hard to make her sigh of relief inaudible.

 

*

 

Work, however, can only keep them occupied for so long, even in the Oval Office, and in far too little time they're both back at their desks. Fortunately for Carol's sanity (and probably her continued employment), CJ has switched to humming along with the music, rather than singing. When Ginger appears waving a stack of printouts from Toby, though, she's still such a welcome distraction that Carol could have kissed her.

“She should give you hazard pay for this,” Ginger says, a note of awe creeping into her voice as she watches CJ sway to the music.

Her stage whisper, though clearly meant to carry into CJ's office, was not necessarily meant to elicit a response, so when CJ calls back, “Hey! I will have you know that Carol _loves_ my singing voice,” they both make rather undignified noises, Carol choking on her coffee and Ginger trying too late to take back her words.

 _Hazard pay for my panties,_ Carol would have said if they had been alone, but with CJ so clearly listening she settles for burying her head in her crossed arms and muttering “I take back everything nice I ever said about you.”

“Aww,” Ginger drops the printouts not _quite_ on her head and gives CJ a half-wave, “you love me anyway.”

She does, too, and while she's not above occasionally wishing she could love Ginger romantically as well as as a best friend instead of nursing this _Thing_ for her boss, she really doesn't know what she'd do without her. “Yeah, yeah.” She emerges from her ineffectual hiding place with only feigned reluctance. “Which reminds me … drinks tonight?”

Ginger pulls a face. “Can't. It's my niece's birthday party and I promised I'd at least put in an appearance.”

“You're too responsible,” Carol sighs, slumping back into her chair. “You're really going to leave me alone to process...” she waves her hand in the air, unwilling to articulate any of the combinations of _CJ, sexy, singing, all day_ that she wants to within earshot of the woman in question.

“C'mon,” Ginger quirks an eyebrow. “Neither of us want me around for, like, ninety percent of the _processing_ you're going to do about that. And the other ten can wait.”

Carol's about to agree, but then Ginger adds “ask _her_ ,” in a real whisper this time, tilting her head towards the still-open door to CJ's office, and Carol narrowly avoids choking on her coffee for the second time in two minutes.

It's a terrible idea, and she tells Ginger so as the other woman leaves in a cloud of perfume and the sort of smugness that only comes from telling a friend something ridiculously inappropriate when they can't react to it. What she doesn't tell Ginger is that maybe it's just a terrible enough idea for Carol to actually do it.

 

*

 

The two hours Carol had thought she had before she could go home turn out to be an overly optimistic estimate, by about three hours. It's past nine by the time she chases off the last of the reporters and starts hunting down her coat. CJ, too, is starting to pack up, and it takes Carol a moment to realize that she's doing so in relative silence.

“What happened to the musical boyfriend?” Carol asks, half-eyeing her coffee mug and wondering if she wants to deal with rinsing it out tonight or tomorrow morning.

CJ flips her hair, but her face remains absolutely deadpan. “Oh. I'm too sexy for him.”

And Carol can't help but laugh at that, a sort of relieved admiring edging-on-too-wild-for-the-office sort of laugh that is the only possible sort of conclusion to this day, to every day they've faced since the President stood up before the nation and told them that he had lied. What she doesn't expect is for CJ to join in her laughter, and, god, Carol doesn't want to think about the number of things she'd do to be able to hear CJ laugh like this every day.

“I haven't seen you laugh like this in weeks, CJ,” Carol says as quiet falls again.

“I've laughed!” CJ says defensively. Carol raises her eyebrows in disbelief. “Well, I've smiled, at least. I smiled . . . three days ago. You spelled _Tehran_ with three _h_ s.”

Carol grins. “Doesn't count. You tried to hit me with your folder and I was too busy ducking to see.” She pauses. “It's not really fair, though, I'm sure it was a lovely smile.” Most of CJ's smiles were.

CJ squints at her. “That sounds suspiciously like the response of someone who knew exactly what she was doing when she put three _h_ s in _Tehran_.”

“Well. . .” Carol gives her a half-smile and hopes she's not blushing as much as she feels like she is.

“You _did_!”

To be perfectly honest, she had thought there were two, but those were the sort of minor details it was her job to keep off of CJ's desk. “I missed it. Seeing you smile.” It comes out softer than she'd meant it to, sounds too much like one of the confessions she's been refusing to make since the day she met CJ.

“So you put typos in my memos … to get me to yell at you about them because you've noticed I usually smile when I do?” And shit, it sounds downright _pathetic_ when CJ puts it like that, but it's still not _wrong._

Carol wrinkles her nose. “It sounded a little more sophisticated in my head.” _God, Carol, keep talking, right, there's no way your mouth is going to make you sound even more stupid right now, is there?_ She can't quite read the look CJ's giving her, a little too open and a little too sweet and it's making Carol want to throw herself into the sun.

“I could kiss you for that,” CJ murmurs, and Carol's stomach drops. Joking, joking, she has to be joking, can't know how many times Carol has thought about her saying those exact words, can't know how hard it's been today especially for her to keep those thoughts out of the office.

And because it's a joke, it _has_ to be a joke because CJ Cregg can't possibly be flirting with her assistant in her office, Carol tries very hard to be joking as well when she says, “I wouldn't mind.” Joking, not needy and earnest and reckless and this is so, so much worse than if she had just listened to Ginger and asked CJ to come for a drink with her.

But CJ's lips are parted just so, and she's putting down her purse and stepping closer, too close, and asking, “Do you mean that?”

She could say no. She could grin and shake her head and say _nah, boss,_ and put them firmly back on joking-about-bad-pop-music ground and everything would stay exactly the same except now she'd _know,_ in her fantasies, what CJ sound like when she says _I could kiss you, Carol._ She couldn't possibly say no. “Yeah. But you can pretend I don't.” Despite everything, she gives CJ the out. There's a difference after all, between coming out to your boss – something she had managed to do, awkwardly and unexpectedly before they had even properly moved in to the White House, on a night when CJ had taken her secret and given her her own in return – and admitting to your boss that you had a crush on her that was probably visible from space.

“What if I don't want to?” CJ's close, so close, and the caution in her voice breaks Carol's heart.

She bites her lip, looks around to check that yes, they really are alone in this part of the building. “Then don't.” _Then kiss me,_ she doesn't add – can't bring herself to add, here, even though they are alone.

CJ knows what she isn't saying though, knows just enough to step impossibly closer, tilt Carol's chin up with two fingers and press their lips together. It's soft and sweet and little awkward, but CJ kisses her with a slow surety that makes Carol wonder how often CJ's thought about doing exactly this.

“CJ,” Carol whispers when they separate. Cliche, maybe, but between being grateful she didn't say _thank you_ and already reliving the kiss she's too busy to care.

“Are we okay?” CJ asks, searching Carol's face for any sign of regret, and the office around them for any sign of anyone else.

“Better than okay,” Carol manages to say. “We should – we should take this outside.” If CJ declined – if she wanted to leave this as a simple kiss of friendship and gratitude, well, Carol would find a way to live with it. But she has to know.

The small smile playing across CJ's lips makes Carol want to kiss her again. “Mm. Too much recklessness in the office for one day?” 

There are too many possibilities in that question for Carol to count, especially now when she's still tingly and lightheaded from kissing CJ. So she settles for a laugh, and, “Yeah. For one day.”

CJ trails a hand along her arm as she steps back, and Carol aches at the loss of her proximity. “Well. We better get a move on, then.”

“Yeah,” Carol says again, still fixed in place, watching as CJ returns to her office to finish packing up. And then something occurs to her. “Oh, and, CJ?”

“Hm?” She half-turns, eyebrow raised, smile no longer small.

“We need to have a talk about your taste in music.”


End file.
